


The Tour

by Lancre_witch



Category: Legacy of Kain
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-08
Updated: 2018-01-08
Packaged: 2019-03-02 09:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13314897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lancre_witch/pseuds/Lancre_witch
Summary: What with one thing and another – getting killed, being possessed and captured by the hylden, getting trapped in a hell dimension – Janos hand never seen the empire, but Kain had been happy to give him a tour. Janos had been considerably less happy to receive it.





	The Tour

After everything that Raziel had been through, Kain was willing to go along with him on a lot of issues, but he had serious reservations about this one. “You said Janos likes humans. How is he going to react to the empire?” Another thought struck him. “How is he going to react to your brothers?”

“Janos is the least judgemental person in Nosgoth and he said he wanted to meet my family. What was I supposed to say?”

“No,” Kain suggested.

“Kain, I killed him! The least I can do is show him around. He’ll be here Tuesday at six. Be nice.”

“Tuesday? You mean the day after you leave for an entire week?”

“Ah. Yes… I’m sure everything will be fine,” he said unconvincingly after a pause that was far too long for comfort.

 

What with one thing and another – getting killed, being possessed and captured by the hylden, getting trapped in a hell dimension – Janos hand never seen Kain’s empire. Five minutes in and he was already beginning to regret it.

Kain had obviously tried, but a coat of white paint could not even begin to hide the mess he had made of the Pillars. Janos looked at the crumbling structures in horror. “My dear boy, what have you done?”

“What hasn’t he done?” came a voice from the broken columns. Ariel faded into view, eager to complain about Kain to new people. “His selfish, bullheaded refusal to sacrifice himself not only damned the world, but in its ashes-”

Kain tried to nudge her to keep quiet, a move which seldom works on ghosts, then said very loudly, “I’m afraid you just missed Raziel-”

“Yes, it must be a couple of centuries since you threw him in-”

“Ariel!” Kain snapped. “Janos doesn’t want to hear about our family’s little spats.”

“Is that what you’re calling it now?”

As he was gently yet swiftly led away, Janos tried to salvage the conversation by saying, “I am looking forward to meeting your sons. Raziel has told me so much about you all.”

He missed the look of pure terror on Kain’s face before he replied, “Then shall we start with my second eldest, Turel? He is always happy to receive visitors, although his eyesight is not what it was.”

“I should love to,” Janos smiled and put a hand on his arm.

Wishing his son’s eyes were the only issue, Kain teleported them both to a keep deep in Nosgoth’s northern mountains.

 

“Turel is… somewhere,” Kain finished as he surveyed the empty room. “Excuse me,” he said with a forced, lightning fast smile and hurried off to harangue some attendants.

Left to his own devices, Janos looked around the chamber. There was rather more water than he would have considered wise amongst made vampires, but presumably it was for the plants which lined every corner of this place.

He decided it was definitely a bad idea when a cry of “What do you mean ‘disappeared’?” made him jump and almost fall in.

Kain reappeared, breathing deeply in an attempt to stay calm. “Turel is out at the moment. My son Duma’s bastion is not far. Allow me to show you around.”

 

It was difficult to tell who regretted the decision to walk there most. Janos was more than a little worried by the vampires wandering the snowfields, both for their wellbeing and by their appearance, and his wings did not do much to keep him warm against the icy wind. Kain, bare chested and shivering, struggled to point out anything of interest underneath the sticking snow. He considered showing him around the Ancient-made chronoplast just to get out of the weather, but decided Janos would not approve of some of the visions he might encounter there regarding their somewhat turbulent family history.

 

Ignoring pride and dignity, Kain kicked the door open and stumbled into the courtyard, partially because of the dead bodies lying just inside. Janos stepped in somewhat more gingerly, a gust of wind buffeting him almost into an impaled corpse. Even his generous heart struggled to find anything nice to say as Kain attempted unsuccessfully to nudge the bodies under a snowdrift.

Inside, Kain was quick to point out interesting features which were not mouldering on the floor. “The iron fretwork and scrollwork on this cage were specially made by the best Turelim smiths.”

Janos tried not to think about what anyone would do with a cage that size in the centre of the entrance hall. He skirted it carefully and followed Kain down narrow corridors which had seen better days, possibly centuries.

“We’ll soon get warmed up. The furnace for heating this place is the size of a house,” Kain said whilst attempting to kick a nearby door in.

“Or we could just find Dumah,” he conceded after a couple of minutes of fruitless kicking.

 

Once again, Janos was led down what felt like miles of freezing corridor, to the sound of Kain’s desperately cheerful chatter. “The gearing of this drawbridge allows it to be operated by a single, easily pulled lever,” he said, heaving on it while sweat pricked his brow until the bridge finally lowered.

“These wall hangings” – the dusty relics waved in the draught blowing through the crumbling walls – “are woven from the finest Zephonim silks.” One fell to the ground under the weight of cobwebs as soon as the words had left his mouth.

“Not the intricate carving on the statue,” he managed through chattering teeth as another flurry of snow fell across the courtyard, before hurrying to the comparative warmth of the room on the other side.

Even Kain’s patter died for a moment upon seeing the throne room, but he rallied. “A revolutionary technique was used in the stained glass of these windows. The red hasn’t faded, you see? The red…” he tailed off.

Janos was still staring at Dumah in horror.

“But perhaps you would be more interested in seeing the home of our textile industry?”

 

Janos made no complaints as he was teleported to the Silenced Cathedral. He had been brought up in the firm belief that you should always find something nice to say to your hosts. “At least my wings have defrosted” didn’t seem appropriate.

“Well, this is certainly very… interesting,” he began upon entering the central chamber.

“The largest organ in Nosgoth,” Kain said with a flourish. “The pipes were built to play a deadly song to our kind. Now they are the home of my grandchildren.”

Meeting his grandchildren has nearly given Janos a heart attack, although he would never say so. Being greeted by a creature climbing down a wall had not been good for his already delicate disposition.

“The strength and quality of their silk is truly astounding. Here.” Kain directed his attention to a web covered wall and placed his hand against it. Janos was followed suit and came into contact with a human skull.

There are times when the world crystalizes in a moment of horror and seconds stretch out to infinity, giving the unfortunate time to think about exactly what to do next. This was not one of those times. Janos leapt back with a yell and wiped his hand frantically on his robe.

Kain raised an eyebrow and walked over to him. “You appear to have found someone’s lunch. I’d leave it there if I were you.” Acting as if that solved any problem Janos might have, he led the way further into the cathedral. Janos paused for a moment, then decided whatever Kain wanted to show him couldn’t be as bad as staying here.

 

He was wrong. Of course he was wrong. The web lined walls of this chamber were splattered with dried blood and that wasn’t the worst of it. Frankly, he didn’t want to know about the operation of the “door”, nor even think about the poor human who had apparently been chopped in half by it. Nevertheless, he stepped inside, albeit reluctantly. In addition to the webs, there was some strange, organic structure on the ceiling. He looked closer and something huge and hideous stared back at him.

Janos stumbled backwards, suppressing a scream, but the creature didn’t attack. It waved an arm at him and before he could think about it Janos felt his own hand rising to wave back.

“Ah, Janos, there you are. You took the wrong corridor.” Kain entered the room and immediately tried to lead Janos away, but he stayed resolutely still.

“What is-” Janos began, gesturing towards the ceiling creature, which as far as he could tell appeared to be smiling now.

“Nothing to concern yourself with, sire. The warp gate is this way.”

This time Janos allowed Kain to show him out, but returned the poor, freakish thing’s smile as he left.

 

At first, Janos had thought that it was just an unfortunately placed warp gate, but as Kain talked him through several centuries of sepulchral architecture, he finally had to accept that he really had intended to take him to this cemetery.

“Built in the late Neo-Sarafan style, Melchiah’s tomb rivals even my own,” Kain said as he opened the door to the mausoleum.

“I really don’t think this is appropriate,” Janos tried to say again, but his protests were pushed aside along with tapestries bearing the sign of Melchiah’s clan. It was then that Kain’s words caught up with him. His youngest was clearly interred here. Janos had never pegged Kain as sentimental, but he knew the pain the loss of a childe could bring, and followed silently to pay his respects.

When the passageway opened out into a large chamber, Janos felt he had to offer some words of comfort. “Kain, I’m so sorry.”

“It was a bit of a shock, but we manage,” Kain said, with something approaching a brave smile. “Melchiah, a visitor for you!”

Janos realised his mistake when something crawled out of the shadows to greet them. Little more than a pile of corpses, is was clear why Kain’s youngest son came as a shock. Too many raised too quickly, he thought. The poor thing. He made a decision, stepped forward and held out his hand. “Lovely to meet you.”

 

Janos wondered if he could surreptitiously wash his hands in the lake surrounding the Drowned Abbey. Melchiah had been a passable host, but the smell of gravedirt and corpses tended to linger.

Kain picked his way carefully to the entrance, then turned to help Janos across the step. “Mind the lintel. The carvings are quite delicate.”

It was a relief to follow Kain along a corridor completely free of dead bodies, admiring the flying buttresses and scrollwork as he pointed them out.

There was almost some trouble when Kain proudly displayed “the best fornication in Nosgoth.”

“I’m sorry?” Janos spluttered.

Kain recognised his tone and adjusted his language. “That is to say, the vaulting. It derives from the Latin _fornix_ meaning arch.”

“Ah.” Janos relaxed again and followed him to the next point of interest.

Kain was glad to see Janos’ smile becoming less forced. Self-assured and absorbed as he was, for some reason he did want to make a good impression on the Ancient. He stopped by a stained glass window. “If you take a couple of steps back and look up, you can see the- aargh!” he stepped back to demonstrate, then disappeared from view.

Janos looked down in concern into the flooded room below. Kain, still yelling, was thrashing about in the water, circled by a pair of Rahabim.

 

Some time later, after Kain had stopped swearing, he sat wrapped in a towel, shivering and steaming, but smiling. Beside him, Janos and Rahab were happily discussing philosophy over tea.


End file.
